The summer of cricket starts tomorrow in Brisbane. The first of five cricket Test Matches between Australia and England will commence. The teams will be playing for the Ashes trophy.
Test Match cricket is a five-day game, where each team will have two innings to bat, with the team who gets the highest score after bowling out their opponent twice will win the match. If no team is bowled out twice in the five days, the match is declared a draw. Many games have extra time or a sudden death shoot-out to determine a winner. Not in Test Match cricket.
You would think that a game played for five days without a result might be boring. On the contrary, Test Match cricket can be quite exciting, especially when it is the last day of the game, and both teams are close to winning. Suspense can build and make the end of the match exciting to watch. However, if it rains for too many days, then a Test Match can drag along and end with no team anywhere near winning the game.
Test Match cricket is under threat from the shorter versions of the game because some spectators don’t have the patience to watch a match over five days. However, for the cricket purist, it remains the best form of cricket you can watch.